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Spend a few minutes setting up an email system that you can use to contact potential clients. The ideal system will let you contact many people at once, based on a custom list that you create.

you need to spend the time to create a custom pitch to that matches your potential clients very closely. Once that is done, set your email system to send the email out at 8am on Tuesday

look for potential network possibilities. This should only take about 5 minutes of your time. You want to check Meetup.com for both freelance writing networking as well as networking opportunities within your writing specialties. Check for local community meetings such as School board and city/county council meetings. All of these are great places to meet potential clients.

I’m a freelancer, but I have a couple of contract gigs that play a big role in my monthly and daily cycles. I’m the science editor at BoingBoing.net, a technology and culture blog with 6 million monthly readers. I also have a monthly column with The New York Times Magazine.

The rest of the day really varies a lot, depending on what I have on my plate at that given time. I have ADHD and it’s really easy for me to get distracted and be unproductive, so I have lots of little tricks I rely on to keep me focused throughout the day. I used to use a timer on my computer a lot, just to have something that, periodically, forced me to look up and think about what I was doing and what I had to do next. But I find now that the two hours between breast pump sessions actually does that job pretty well. I also jump back and forth between stuff on my to-do list, depending on what I feel motivated to do. If I just can’t get myself to write during a given two-hour block, I’m better off answering email or sending out interview requests than just sitting there, staring at a blank page.

Skype, Call Recorder, and Stickies.

This goes beyond setting goals for individual projects and instead spans all parts of your writing life, from pitching to craft to the business side.

Brainstorm all the things you’d love to see yourself accomplishing as a writer. Once you’ve got your ideas down on paper, streamline those thoughts by writing in one sentence that encompasses your overall objective for writing.

Each big picture requires a different set of tasks. And each short-term goal will flow naturally from your big picture goal.

Imagining is the job of the fiction writer. This is what we do, every time we sit down in front of a blank page. It seems as if we’re working with no more than a keyboard or pen and paper, but that’s not true. We have at our disposal every person we’ve ever known, every experience we’ve ever had, seen, heard and felt. Our ingredients are the people who have ignored us and caused us to search our brains for reasons why, people whom we’ve admired, both intimately and from a distance, and people whom we’ve tried to emulate. People who love us despite our faults; people we can’t stand despite our efforts to be better people ourselves.